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Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

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Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#41

Post by Uhhrrr »

methodin wrote: post #28

Great. Another opinionated post with no substance that reaches number one. What is this garbage? It's not like this person even has any first-hand knowledge of anything with regards to the cited excerpt. Why would anyone upvote such a short, speculative rant?

Allowing pseudonyms is not just technically easy, it's the default. Also, it's no secret that Google uses your data to advertise to you (it is so far from secret as to be their business model), and that various governments at the least would like very much to have access to user data. The piece is almost completely speculation-free.

If you think the post's brevity was a shortcoming, though, read this, which was linked from the OP: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/08/nym-wars/

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#42

Post by msbarnett »

methodin wrote: post #28

Great. Another opinionated post with no substance that reaches number one. What is this garbage? It's not like this person even has any first-hand knowledge of anything with regards to the cited excerpt. Why would anyone upvote such a short, speculative rant?

Because:

1) The short, speculative rant is well-reasoned. If you disagree with his reasoning that Google saying it will take "months" to implement pseudonyms implies that their solution is significantly more complicated than simply "stop deleting accounts with names we don't like", it would be conducive to discussion if you explained your reasoning.

2) This short, speculative, well-reasoned rant is written by JWZ, whose insight and wisdom is held in wide regard by many, many people. He's earned the right to have his speculations taken seriously many, many times over.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#43

Post by esrauch »

nirvana wrote: post #8

I've been using Google pretty regularly for the past 11 years, and have had a gmail account since soon after it was announced. However with the release of Plus and the revelation of their policies on "real names", I've come to realize that I no longer trust google. Gmail accounts can be effectively anonymous. Yet plus accounts cannot be? Google does not need anyone's real name in order to track and advertise to them.…

> They want to correlate my online activities with my offline identity.

It seems to me that the only legitimate use of circles is with respect to people you are sharing with that you know in real life. If you want to talk to total strangers, then you want to be pseudonymous but you also have almost no reason to not post publicly.

That's fine; there is twitter, tumblr, even HN fit that model. All pseudonymous posts, all public all the time. Discussions with strangers.

Google+ can be used that way; I guess many people do. I somehow got marked as a redditor when I first signed up and I still have about 3 redditors that are strangers start following me every week, and I think it's pretty awful.

There is a huge space for online interactions with people who you know in meatspace, and plenty of reason why Google would want to get into that game. Product recommendations is the first thing that comes to mind; would you rather buy an item that your real life friend says is good or that a random person on the internet says is good? That is a benefit both to you and to google if they can provide that.

If you don't want to interact with people you know IRL, there are plenty of other services besides Google+ available online. Gmail remains one of them, it's a perfectly legitimate service to interact with strangers. It seems to me that you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater just because they are offering a product that you don't want to use, but that's obviously your choice.

> The only reason that it would take months to implement is because they're using some authoritative method - maybe ISP customer info, or government supplied info- to correlate users to reveal real identity.

This is seriously bordering on "batshit crazy" level conspiracy theory. What you are describing is impossible on so many levels; legal, technical and PR. I have no idea what they are implementing, but it's probably more along the lines of allowing people who are demonstrably known in real life by pseudonyms (like Lady Gaga, but less famous). The advantage is not from you using your real name, the advantage is from knowing the name that lots of people already know you by so all those people can easily find you on Google+. No one you know in real life would be able to find you on HN unless you specifically linked them to your profile; which again is fine, it is simply providing a different service, one where you could be talking to your best friend and never even know it.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#44

Post by mladenkovacevic »

loopdoend wrote: post #13

If Google still requires you to use your real name to register but allows you to show only a pseudonym, the problem ceases to exist because there is no one able to rat you out. That is, unless they write an algorithm that checks for "Dear realname" in your emails and compares it to your purported name & pseudonym. Yuck.

the point is that Google is still able to rat you out (on a warrant or a subpoena)

If you wanted to use the platform to protest against the government, or if you fucked the head of CIA's wife and he found out your g-mail address on her phone, you might be in deep shit.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#45

Post by blantonl »

nirvana wrote: post #8

I've been using Google pretty regularly for the past 11 years, and have had a gmail account since soon after it was announced. However with the release of Plus and the revelation of their policies on "real names", I've come to realize that I no longer trust google. Gmail accounts can be effectively anonymous. Yet plus accounts cannot be? Google does not need anyone's real name in order to track and advertise to them.…

Why on earth would you want to remain anonymous on social platforms as an entrepreneur? Frankly, most of your businesses' success rides on who is running the show, and investors and customers want to know about who is running the show. Even if you don't want a social media profile, that is OK. But to insist on an anonymous one? Why?

Seriously, for an entrepreneur, what is the motivation for having an anonymous social media account?

I certainly understand the issue of one's privacy, but if you are expecting to run a successful online business, your identity will need to be defined across the social media platforms. If that profile is not defined and you are a successful entrepreneur, your profile will be created for you (in wiki style).

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#46

Post by rst »

raldi wrote: post #31
mindstab wrote: post #7

Everyone is also missing the bigger point that Google's idea of a valid real name is incredibly north american and anglo centric. There are plenty of cases of people using their real names, be in European, or African or what ever and google still kicking them off. Google's policies do not work, and are verging on racist. I know some people who would be better off using a fake anglo name than their real name to keep u…

Do you have some examples of the cases you refer to?

Ironically enough, Chinese residents in Hong Kong who do in fact go by Anglo names (an expression of their mixed cultural heritage in a former British colony) are getting systematically bounced:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=40356...

By some accounts, this is the reason for the odd "in one language" qualification in the Google Plus notions of what a "real name" ought to be. FWIW, there's at least one American-born Chinese who's gotten similar treatment: Ping Yee, who got bounced because someone insisted that his only Real Name (TM) was Ka-Ping Yee --- which is what it says on his birth certificate, but which no one (even family) uses much.

http://zestyping.livejournal.com/259131.html

What makes this one particularly odd is that Ping is a Google employee (or at least, he was at the time).

I suspect Anglosphere-born Chinese who go by "Alexa Chung", or whatever, aren't getting this level of systematic grief, but that only makes things more ridiculous: why should the acceptability of a name depend on where someone lives?

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#47

Post by mcantelon »

blantonl wrote: post #45
nirvana wrote: post #8

I've been using Google pretty regularly for the past 11 years, and have had a gmail account since soon after it was announced. However with the release of Plus and the revelation of their policies on "real names", I've come to realize that I no longer trust google. Gmail accounts can be effectively anonymous. Yet plus accounts cannot be? Google does not need anyone's real name in order to track and advertise to them.…

Why on earth would you want to remain anonymous on social platforms as an entrepreneur? Frankly, most of your businesses' success rides on who is running the show, and investors and customers want to know about who is running the show. Even if you don't want a social media profile, that is OK. But to insist on an anonymous one? Why? Seriously, for an entrepreneur, what is the motivation for having an anonymous social…

Wanting support for pseudonymity doesn't mean you're always using it. I can see someone using a non-anon account by day, anon during off-time.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#48

Post by fpgeek »

blahedo wrote: post #6
joebadmo wrote: post #3

I'll bet they still require you to register with your "real" name, but then they'll graciously allow you to have a linked nickname or two, I agree, and I think this is probably the right thing for them to do. (Well, probably stop kicking people off, too.) And I think they're probably doing this in an attempt to allow people to better represent themselves in the ways that they choose, and more in line with how they ca…

> > meaning they're still fully prepared to roll over on you > I'm not sure what the suggestion is here. They should be prepared to flout the law? Why would you draw that inference? JWZ seems to be presuming the opposite, i.e. that Google plans to comply with the law---and since they will have carefully collected legal names to go with every account, they can be maximally helpful to the authoritarian governments who…

The idea that Google having your Real Name via Google+ helps them be helpful to governments (authoritarian or otherwise) is... odd.

If a government wants to tie a Google account to a Real Name, they have plenty of options:

- get a history of IP addresses that accessed the account and contact the relevant ISPs

- track other Google accounts logged into from a similar pattern of IP addresses and see if there's a Real Name for any of them

- look at the content associated with the account (e.g. email), which may reveal the Real Name and/or give pointers to other services (e.g. Paypal) that might well have it

- if you use an Android phone with the Google account in question, Google can tie the account to a SIM and an IMEI. If the SIM is postpaid (or even prepaid in many countries), that will directly lead to a Real Name (note: authoritarian governments are very likely to require all SIMs be associated with a Real Name). Even if a prepaid SIM isn't directly associated with a Real Name, there still could be a payment trail for the SIM and/or top-ups ...

- probably other angles I haven't thought of yet

These are additional steps, but many of them are easy because they involve actors (e.g. ISPs, carriers, credit card processors) that are known for cooperating with governments (and sometimes even private actors like the MPAA & RIAA). Beyond that, anyone trying to tie a Google account to a Real Name is likely to do some or all of these things anyway to check whether or not you lied to Google.

Giving Google your Real Name for Google+ affects whether or not they can use it. If you're not happy with how Google is going to use your Real Name, Google+ isn't for you (and probably wasn't even without the pseudonym issue, since you have concerns about Google's business practices). Giving your Real Name to Google for Google+ doesn't meaningfully change whether or not a government (or other entity in a position to legally compel Google) can tie your Google account to a Real Name.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#49

Post by 0x12 »

esrauch wrote: post #43
nirvana wrote: post #8

I've been using Google pretty regularly for the past 11 years, and have had a gmail account since soon after it was announced. However with the release of Plus and the revelation of their policies on "real names", I've come to realize that I no longer trust google. Gmail accounts can be effectively anonymous. Yet plus accounts cannot be? Google does not need anyone's real name in order to track and advertise to them.…

> They want to correlate my online activities with my offline identity. It seems to me that the only legitimate use of circles is with respect to people you are sharing with that you know in real life. If you want to talk to total strangers, then you want to be pseudonymous but you also have almost no reason to not post publicly. That's fine; there is twitter, tumblr, even HN fit that model. All pseudonymous posts, a…

You can be pseudonymous to google but known to your friends, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

After all, google is just the transportation medium why should it have any knowledge on whose data it transports, as long as it reaches the intended destination it's all good.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#50

Post by kevinalexbrown »

methodin wrote: post #40
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's still a reasonable "BS" call. If you support pseudonyms, you stop kicking them off. That doesn't take first-hand knowledge to notice.

So is it common knowledge when they kick someone off for using them? Did it happen after this announcement? Etc... All this article does is speculate on what Google will do in the next couple months... how is it even relevant?

"Whatever Google is planning cannot be [just not kicking off pseudonyms], because they think it will take them months to implement."

That's relevant speculation, regardless of whether he's right.

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